Me, bury my serial killer son? Over my dead body!

When a parent loses a child, the pain is too much to bear because death cannot be reserved. The grieving parents, relatives and friends are often besides themselves as they try to come to terms with the death.

But for Robert Wanjala Watila, who hails from Namakhele village in Bungoma County, that is not the case he is least bothered about the demise of his son Masten Wanjala Milimu.

Wanjala, self-confessed serial killer, was killed by a mob 64 days ago barely two days after escaping from Jogoo Road Police Station.

 “I will not bury him on my ancestral land since I do not want his cursed blood to follow my family lineage. I will not attempt to go to the mortuary to pick his body, the government can bury him at a place of their convenience or in a cemetery,” says Watila.

He added: “The same way they let him escape from Jogoo police station, a heavily guarded area, it is the same way they should lay him to rest. No one should come here to tell me to go and pick his remains. In fact, I believe my son is alive and in the cells awaiting arraignment in court,” he adds.

According to the father, the government did not involve him or any of the family members when they conducted the autopsy on October 21 at Bungoma County Referral Hospital Mortuary.

Watila says a team of homicide investigators who brought two pathologists to conduct the autopsy five days after he was lynched at Mukhweya village, should bury him and that they should not involve him the burial plans.

“They did a postmortem without us and that means it was their (government) child and should not put pressure on me to go and bury him. I did not sign any document before they conducted the autopsy and, therefore, I will not bury someone else on my ancestral land,” says Watila.

Though Watila knows Wanjala was killed by a mob, some 500 metres from his home, he insists his son is still alive and is waiting for the day they will be called  to go to court for the hearing of his murder case.

“My son is alive and I want him taken to court and be convicted of his sins. If he dies in prison after his sentencing, I will wait for directions from the court to go and pick his body for burial,” says Watila. He adds his son was under the custody of the police when they received news that he had escaped and two days later, they heard ‘rumours’ of his death.

If it is true he was killed, he is demanding the arrest of his killers. 

Bungoma County Commissioner Samuel Kimiti declined to comment on the matter saying it is an issue that is still under investigation. Wanjala was arrested in July this year in connection with the killing of two children that had gone missing in Shauri Moyo, Nairobi. 

Upon his arrest, he took the police to at least six other locations in Nairobi and Bungoma counties where he had dumped bodies of his victims.

He escaped from Jogoo Road Police Station where he was being detained, just a day to appearing in court where he was expected to plead to five of 14 murder charges against him.

He travelled to Bungoma from Nairobi and around at about 6.30am on the day he was killed, a group of learners on their way to school spotted him and raised an alarm.

Boda boda riders chased after him. He started running away for his life after the learners blew up his covers.

 Earlier, villages led by Moses Mukhwana said he even threatened them when they were chasing after him and that he was armed with a pair of scissors. According to Mukhwana, Wanjala jumped into a local teacher’s house through an open window and locked himself inside.

“He hid behind timber that was in the living room but he was panting. Our mission was not to harm him. We wanted to hand him over to security agencies but he attacked us,” he said.

The three men overpowered Wanjala and frog-marched him out of his hideout. However, a mob immediately pounced on him and killed him on the spot.

Three police officers who were on duty on the night Wanjala escaped from the station were arrested and are out on a  Sh100,000 cash bail each.